What is your summer book list?

It’s that time of year when I like to pile up the list of books to read during my time away. I’ve glanced over on the shelf and found that I’m not as ready to go as I usually am and I’m also feeling I don’t want to waste time with things I really don’t want to read after all. What am I looking for this summer?

Something big and fat? Something short and readable all in one afternoon? Maybe some of both. I’ll give it a shot and ask you to join me in August, on Sunday the 16th at a worship service I’m going to call a “book communion.” On that Sunday, bring a book with you, something you’ve enjoyed that you think someone else might like to take home. In turn, there may be a book for you sitting on the altar that day. We’ll talk about the pleasures and other benefits of reading. In the meantime, here’s what I’m planning on reading this summer:

~Maybe not in this order, but The Whole Death Catalog (Harold Schechter) intrigues me maybe because of the line of work I’m in. A few years ago I read Mary Roach’s Stiff, and I’ve read various articles by Thomas Lynch, a mortician and really great writer.

~The Hour I First Believed (Wally Lamb). This is a novel set in my old home-town of Littleton, Colorado at the time of the Columbine High School shooting, which in real life, was just before I moved here. I’ve got to read this.

~Bird in Hand (Christina Baker Kline) Oprah says this is a good, fast read and I’d like one of these. There are still some books on my shelf that are leftover from this year that I haven’t yet got to—I commend to you Starr King School for the Ministry president Rebecca Parker’s book Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire. Parker and her co-author Rita Nakashima Brock have written together before, and their academic subject matter is given wonderful, eye-opening interest.

I also picked up The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hinduism which I’ve been perusing, and Ron is reading a book I got for him, Zen Putting by Joe Parent. I bet I’ll read that when he’s finished. My yoga instructor has been using Tiger Wood as a model for us lately about how to think of ourselves as strong and certain. I might apply a little Buddhist philosophy to all areas of my life.

So, what are you reading? What will you bring to church on August 16th? What do you love so much you don’t want to share it? I hope you have a happy summer of resting, reading, of time spent with family, or at least taking a little more time to yourself than you might for the rest of the year.

With love and blessings, Katie